Excerpts from CT DEP Diadromous Fish Report

• The shad run is showing signs of slowing down but daily lifts are enough to provide fish for trucking and yesterday we hauled a load from Holyoke to the Naugatuck River. Today, we will do a double trip: one load up to New Hampshire (above Vernon Dam) and one trip to the Farmington River. The run has slightly surpassed last year’s figure. The Connecticut River may be a bright spot—the run on the Susquehanna is 22,000+ (it was 200,000 six years ago) and the Merrimack has also been slow. The counts at Turners Falls are being made off a digital imaging system and the counts are way behind. You can see that they’ve counted more fish at Vernon (next upstream dam) than at Turners Falls. All data for Turners Falls should be considered preliminary. The counts at Vernon and Bellows Falls are also lagged behind. The Vernon data is through June 4. Clearly, more salmon than one have passed through Vernon since two radio-tagged salmon were detected on the West River, an upstream tributary. Earlier today, the Army Corps of Engineers trapped one of those salmon at the blind fishway at Townshend Flood Control Dam and transported it upstream.
• The distribution of trapped salmon is curious. I don’t think you can compare numbers for individual fishways, 2006 vs. 2007. I suspect that many salmon bound for Connecticut fishways (especially Rainbow) missed their turn and ended up at Holyoke. When the storm in late May surged the Connecticut River flow, it missed the Farmington River and the Rainbow Dam was generating for only a few hours a day. So Holyoke may have more fish than it should and Rainbow and other tributaries may have fewer—which means the entire river is running behind last year’s numbers. But the water temperatures remain unseasonably cool (18C/64F at Holyoke) and more fish may be on their way. We saw the first Argulus parasites on a sea-run trout this morning at Leesville—which is very late due to the cool water temperatures. Flows have come up in the Farmington and Salmon rivers as of late due to the recent rains. One interesting occurrence was the passage of a shortnose sturgeon at the West Springfield fishway on the Westfield River. Not only was it a first for that fishway, it may be one of the first reports of a sturgeon using a Denil fishway! The sea lamprey run seems stronger than the last few years. The new digital system at Vernon is now able to record passage overnight and Jay McMenemy of VTDFW expects the number of lamprey to be very high this year, perhaps only because we can now count them all.
• The river herring runs seem like they are just about over. Dave Dembosky of The Nature Conservancy reported a few more herring at the Wood Dam on the Saugatuck River. We did not get a report from Greenwich on the Mianus Pond fishway but expect that is winding down, too. Our staff saw no fish anywhere in the state (all areas) during the past week. Young-of-the-year alewives were observed leaving Brides Lake. Many fishways have been closed down for the season to prevent the lowering of the headponds. Moulson Pond Fishway (reported in the Connecticut River section) was closed last week, which is earlier than normal, so that the Lyme Land Conservation Trust can replace the headgate for the millrace. The existing gate constricts the opening even when fully opened and during certain conditions it restricts fish passage. The new valve will be a custom-made butterfly valve that will eliminate that constriction and allow full passage at all conditions. This project, funded by a National Fish & Wildlife Foundation grant (and perhaps other sources that I am forgetting), is a great project and an example of a fishway owner taking its responsibility for fish passage seriously. The LLCT should be commended for taking on this project.
• Although it is old news by now, I am happy to report the conversation some fellows from New London County had with seasonal employee Bob Hobbins. They were talking about fishways and they said that they visited the new Jordan Millpond Fishway on Jordan Brook in Waterford one night and witnesses “hundreds” of alewives moving through the fishway and out into the headpond. Those are the kinds of reports we like to hear! We are often limited in our observations to daytime and can’t be everywhere so it is good to have interested members of the public provide us with these reports. Particularly for new fishways for which we lack data! To read an article about the dedication of this fishway, see the June 3 edition of the New London’s The Day, page C1.
• We are still behind on passage data on the Shetucket River. The runs at Greeneville have been tapering off fast but hopefully there are still fish to pass at upstream fishways. The eel pass at Occum was just opened and is passing eels. The Greeneville Eelpass is expected to be opened shortly. The Kinneytown Fishway is passing lots of suckers and smallmouth bass and is having a good year for sea-run brown trout and sea lamprey.
• The Fishing Brook Eel Pass is still passing eels, although the pace has slowed down. In its inaugural season, it has passed over 41,000 eels, more than any other eel pass in Connecticut—perhaps more than all of the others combined! If you want to read and see photos of this eel pass and the adjacent steeppass fishway, check out today’s New London’s The Day, Monday 11, page C1. A great photo of an elver sliding down the ramp into the trap.